Legends of Aethereus - Now Available

September 29th, 2013, 07:42

The successful Kickstarter Legends of Aethereusis now available on Steam. You can can buy the game for 20% off this week only.

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GOTLAND, SWEDEN – September 27, 2013 – ThreeGates, an independent game development studio focused on Action Role-Playing Games, today released Legends of Aethereus, on Steam at the introductory price of $23.99 at: http://store.steampowered.com/app/248410/. Players can now enter the world of Aethereus and start their expeditions as a solo adventurer or in a Co-Op group with up to 3 friends. The game’s innovative physics-based combat system is a key feature that RPG fans will find innovative and unique in their quests.

"Only four more days left until launch day and we’ve worked with the team at Steam to do a launch promotion that we hope the community likes,” said Don Geyer, CEO of ThreeGates. “LoA is a deep, core gaming experience and we know Steam’s audience of RPG fans will find the physics based combat and exploration system to be different from anything they are used to.”

Next week, Legends of Aethereus will return to its regular retail price of $29.99 and players are encouraged to pick up the game during launch week to take advantage of the discount.

About Legends of Aethereus

The planet of Aethereus is an ancient and mysterious world filled with majestic forests, misty swamps, deep caves and ancient ruins. Devastated by three large astronomical events, the Three Great Skyfalls, it is a world just coming out of chaos and ruin. The recent unearthing of The Gauldron Tablets has revealed the existence of The Seven Ancient Skyfall Relics. The promise of unlimited power for those who possess the objects has led to a frenzied search across all of Aethereus.

As a member of the Nexus City-State, one of the last bastions of freedom and hope on Aethereus, you will be entrusted with the critical undertaking of procuring The Ancient Skyfall Relics. Standing in your way are the Serpentica Shamans of Ghalia and the hordes of Khagal Tribes they control as well as the oppressive Venatan Empire forces led by the notorious General Zhorgal.

Join forces in online multiplayer cooperative expeditions as the Inventor or Officer while you embark on a variety of story driven hand-crafted expedition levels and explore the wilderness through a variety of procedurally generated exploration quests.

Apparently it's RAM heavy, people saying you need at least 6-8 to run smoothly. And loading times are supposed to be pretty bad.

I pulled this out of a constructive feedback thread:

I love the Monster Hunter hub feel, but unfortunately the combat doesn't quite feel as weighty or as satisfying as the Monster Hunter, or even the Dark / Demon Souls series. I am sure with a few tweaks though, it can be as accurate and as tactical as people had hoped for.

I would really like to see a spellcasting class. There are other classes mentioned in the game (Animist etc), but only 2 can be chosen. I'm not sure what your future plans are, but I look forward to experiencing some variety with classes.

Speaking of variety, the environments, whilst gorgeous especially for an indie game, do feel a little lifeless and static. If I'm traveling to a volcano-like area, I would love to see molten lava and volcanic ash. If I'm traveling to a swamp, I would like to see misty mires and maybe some impaired movement effects as I wade through them.

Lastly, I would like to see EPIC monster designs. I'm currently level 20 Officer and I've seen the same enemies, sometimes with a pallette swap. I want to feel like a hero; I want to slay behemoths, dragons, and other monstrosities, especially with friends. It will give the game that EPIC feeling.

Also I would like to add that the AI isn't great a lot of the time. So many times have I seen enemies running into walls, getting caught in the terrain and also some even just standing still completely stoic as I slash away at them.

Would also like to see a magic-type class. There's some magic-like abilities, such as power strike and others, so it'd be nice if there was a class devoted to skills like that.

Also having some more life to the different environemnts would be great too

Combat:
- a bit less static melee combat system would be nice (the character pretty much does the attack animation and can be moved only after it is finished) so moving and attack at the same time would make the combat system less static, pretty much like the way the ranged combat system works, where the character can move while aiming. So for example when doing a side way dodge while doing an attack at the same time would make the character perform an attack that also moves the character in that direction, like the forward thrust for example. But then again that would also make the system less tatical, eg. when you have to hit and so on. So that is more of a personal complaint.
- melee movement speed, attack speed and attack damage should also be dependent on stamina so a tired character fights less efficient. Also ranged combat (aiming and moving while aiming for example) should drain stamina and the stamina level would also affect reload and aiming speed as well in order to balance out the fact that melees are more dependent on stamina with the above change.
- have agility increase the dodge distance so it is more interessting for melee characters for hit and run tatics

]I[ Three Gates Dev [developer] 5 hours ago
Thanks for the feedback!

We are listening and we will be making announcements about the next patch in the days ahead.

You know I am just going to wait for a credible review. I am a grazer and I will buy just about any RPG but not if it is a half hearted attempt and it seems like "theft" ( not saying this game is at all) I think the Steam forums are the ultimate buyers remorse forums— you see a video like that above that engender high expecations, pop for full price and then have your high expectations unmet— it is the classic anger scenario.
You really do have to read a review or go in with low expectations or run the risk of being caught in the spell of "RPG hope dashing".
I am looking at you Legends of Dawn and Arkina and Realms of Arkania remake

Legends of Dawn is a decent game. Most of the bugs have been squashed and though it doesn't feel like an AAA game, there are many B games that LoD could stand shoulder to shoulder with. I'd say its solid, if not spectacular.

Well, I bought this and… Uninstalled it after one hour or so of playing and went to play Amalur, again.
What bothered me the most was the fact that all five to six missions I played were "get to place x, fetch y then kill the boss".
There's a "Dragon Age 2" feel to it, in the fact that the game assets are reused ad-nauseum, like every tree in the game is the exact same everywhere. Not to mention textures, there's a sense of "deja-vu" everywhere you go, be it desert, jungle or whatever.
Also, I didn't like the hub even though there's -limited- customization to it. Maybe if the outside of the hub didn't feel so boring while questing, I might've enjoyed it.
So yeah, bottom line… I wish I spent the money elsewhere.

Originally Posted by ikbenrichard
about Realms of Arkania v1.21, was wondering if there is gonna be a re-review by RPGwatch?

I'm thinking about buying it too. If nobody else takes the plunge before me, I'll do a write-up. There are a lot better choices though for game reviews. Maybe GBG or Mad or TXA or somebody will do one. Alrik or Hidden would be good too, because this is TDE and they're more familiar with that ruleset than I am.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Legends of Dawn is a decent game. Most of the bugs have been squashed and though it doesn't feel like an AAA game, there are many B games that LoD could stand shoulder to shoulder with. I'd say its solid, if not spectacular.

yes Legend of Dawn is a decent game (about 35 hours in) but. . . .

I just went up a some kind of new level(?) and suddenly all the local monsters re-spawned and to top it off, you get no credit for killing the re-spawned monsters.

So I am going to put the game down for a while. The last update was supposed to fix that no credit bug. Mostly I hope they fix the camera perspective.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I'm thinking about buying it too. If nobody else takes the plunge before me, I'll do a write-up. There are a lot better choices though for game reviews. Maybe GBG or Mad or TXA or somebody will do one. Alrik or Hidden would be good too, because this is TDE and they're more familiar with that ruleset than I am.